While the feeling of meltdown is still being felt elsewhere the most I can come up with here is the market may stay open till five next week and I did see a chicken cross the road by the town wall. He'd obviously had enough and if he could have he would have given the town the finger like Dana the terrier did recently as she hopped on board the fast train outta here. Talking of fingers, I haven't seen one of our street's characters 'Manolo 'no fingers'. He is a poet and has tacked a sign on his door warning people that one lives there. I no longer see Celestino which is his real name as The Hermanos de Cruz Blanca have upped sticks and gone. It is quite weird not to be able to see them from my kitchen window anymore as it was reassuring to be able to see neighbours. I wonder who will move in or perhaps the council will tear the lovely building down and put up horrible new ones which they like to do.You can look out of the window at any time of day and see others who I have nicknamed or are waiting to be named. There is an old woman who looks serene and as she walked along during one of our blackouts this evening she took on a ghostly quality that I found soothing, her grey hair and coat glistening as the cars drove by. I think I will call her Lady Grey.
Perhaps it is a good thing Woolworths and MFI are up the creek as the last time I went they looked like shops you might find in a communist country or maybe a fascist one. God knows where people buy their furniture here. It is either ultra moderno or from some shop I have yet to find myself in. You go to someone's house and if it is new they take great delight showing you round. This has happened to me so many times and is quite a bizarre feeling as you feel the only other time this happens is when you want to buy a place. If their flat or house is old they don't do this but you can glimpse weird brown and green furniture and everywhere seems dark. Sometimes I find myself in the hallway of a block of flats and I am not sure which country I am in and then usually the lights go out after a few seconds and I grope along as there is no other way to put it till I find the switch which is usually indicated by a little red light. I did this once and when the light came on again I was right at the top of the stairs teetering on the edge of what looked like an abyss from the fifth floor. This reminds me of a death Spanish style story. A couple got stuck in a lift between the fifth and sixth floor and instead of waiting for the fire brigade they prised the doors open and the man managed to jump onto the floor below. He coaxed the woman he was travelling with to jump and to not worry he would catch her. Well he did and they both went flying down the lift shaft as the gap was big enough for both of them. On hearing such awful news I mentioned it to a friend who said 'Si, un accidente impresionante'.
On a lighter note and to avoid nightmares I have come up with another programme. It will be called 'Who is taking the piss' and would be ideal if it could be hosted by David Frost and then he could say 'Let's go and see whoooooooooo is taking the piss' in the same way he used to present that other crap programme Let's Go Through the Keyhole.
Sunday 30 November 2008
Saturday 29 November 2008
I DON'T FEEL LIKE CHICKEN TONIGHT
I don't know where to begin. It is all too much. Scenes from the Wicker Man were shown on tele this evening. When they are not being shown Henderson is watching True Crime Scenes of people being bludgeoned to death.I'm feeling autistic every time Facebook asks me what I am doing right now and Spanish friends are ringing me up saying 'I'm John' 'cos there is no 'It's John' in Spanish so they have to say the former which drives me mad as I feel compelled to say 'yes I know it's you, we've been friends for years'. When they are not telling me they are John they ask 'what are you doing?' as there is no 'what are you up to' as far as I know in their native tongue. On top of this I have old, gold friends getting in touch which has made my day and finally, Henderson has permitted me to read him one of my favourite books while he cooks, Three Men in a Boat which I said reminded me of the Three Men in a Car on that programme called Top Gear to which he, being a fan, agreed. Then I spoke with Stephanie and she tells me there is a website called Britsuperstore.com which means I can shop for things I can't get here which also means I don't have to ask anyone to send me stuff or bring it when they come, for if you want anything done do it/order it yourself. What else? I found a baker's that sells delicious brown bread. Thanks to Stephanie again. She also told me a wonderful tale concerning her granddaughter Sol during the school lunch hour where the children were told if they didn't pipe down and behave they wouldn't get any chocolate pudding but an apple instead and Sol was thinking 'please carry on misbehaving'. I am intrigued and inspired by her palate as most Spanish kids can only be appeased by something crap to eat despite the 'Mediterranean diet' being sold as something the Spanish couldn't live without.
On top of all this I have been fascinated and somewhat confused to the goings on back in Blighty concerning politicians, policia, Jackie Smith, Gordon Brown et al. I put on some Fela Kuti this afternoon and as always felt spiritually revived and compelled to 'do something' which is a phrase that can't help but make me think of Henderson when he has had a few and I am wearing my hair nice or a touch of make-up or the lights are low and he says 'you've done something'. Which then makes me think of all those phony women in the perfumeria here who, on seeing a woman, any woman, enter the premises feel compelled to lie and holler, 'hola guapa'. If you turn and have a look at these 'guapas' including yourself you will realise they are, the perfume girls, as insincere as the police and politicians mentioned earlier. So, what to do. Do something. Where are the likes of Fela Kuti who said if he were to become President of Nigeria he would enrol the entire population into the Police force and where is there anyone remotely like Bill Hicks the comedian who was surely the second coming but we missed him. Henderson thinks Britain should be kicked out of the Commonwealth if it doesn't pull its socks up. Talking of the Commonwealth, I got a text from a Spanish friend holidaying in the Canaries asking me if Lanzarote was in The Commonwealth. I haven't heard from her since so I don't know who she was up against or if she survived.
Closer to home I think I may have imagined it but Manuel Fraga came to town yesterday. Not as exciting as Big Bum Bertha but enough to raise a few goosebumps as he was responsible for the 'Spain is Different' excuse that Spaniards like to espouse whenever things go awry. Yes, and he said something on the lines of 'Franco wasn't a criminal that I know of '. Well I have heard it all now. All this to take in on a Saturday.
On top of all this I have been fascinated and somewhat confused to the goings on back in Blighty concerning politicians, policia, Jackie Smith, Gordon Brown et al. I put on some Fela Kuti this afternoon and as always felt spiritually revived and compelled to 'do something' which is a phrase that can't help but make me think of Henderson when he has had a few and I am wearing my hair nice or a touch of make-up or the lights are low and he says 'you've done something'. Which then makes me think of all those phony women in the perfumeria here who, on seeing a woman, any woman, enter the premises feel compelled to lie and holler, 'hola guapa'. If you turn and have a look at these 'guapas' including yourself you will realise they are, the perfume girls, as insincere as the police and politicians mentioned earlier. So, what to do. Do something. Where are the likes of Fela Kuti who said if he were to become President of Nigeria he would enrol the entire population into the Police force and where is there anyone remotely like Bill Hicks the comedian who was surely the second coming but we missed him. Henderson thinks Britain should be kicked out of the Commonwealth if it doesn't pull its socks up. Talking of the Commonwealth, I got a text from a Spanish friend holidaying in the Canaries asking me if Lanzarote was in The Commonwealth. I haven't heard from her since so I don't know who she was up against or if she survived.
Closer to home I think I may have imagined it but Manuel Fraga came to town yesterday. Not as exciting as Big Bum Bertha but enough to raise a few goosebumps as he was responsible for the 'Spain is Different' excuse that Spaniards like to espouse whenever things go awry. Yes, and he said something on the lines of 'Franco wasn't a criminal that I know of '. Well I have heard it all now. All this to take in on a Saturday.
Thursday 27 November 2008
THE WICKER MAN
Even though he is dead Franco is still the adopted son and perpetual mayor of this town. It sounds a bit too much like our mayor who is becoming more like Lord Summerisle and The Caudillo's love child. To be fair he does have a passing resemblance to Don Quixote, our mayor, not Franco. So apparently the council has decided that Franco is not going to be any of the above and so have revoked all this. Seeing as the last time Franco visited the town was in 1953 and he has been a long time dead since 1975 I am sure he won't mind.
I talked about the Opus Dei recently and standing outside their church was not the first Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came moment I have had here. It was a lovely sunny Sunday in our first flat here and somebody upstairs was playing marbles or rather playing marbles Spanish style, for hours on end on a cold ceramic floor without any purpose except maybe drive the whole block insane. I have spoken of the acoustics of Spanish flats before but this one was the most surreal as you could even hear a workman making indentations on a wall with his thumb. Anyway, after listening to Henderson screaming his head off I went up to have a word. We didn't know anyone then and while I was waiting outside to have the word some other neighbours were peering round a door whispering to me in such a terrified way that anyone would have thought the Nazis were coming. 'Don't go in there' they were pleading but in I went and told them they were torturing my husband and would they kindly put a sock in it and shut the fuck up. When I came out the other neighbours bundled me into their flat and told me 'Don't ever go in there again, they are Opus Dei'. They then went on to tell me about the husband's shenanigans and the wife's depressing choice in underwear.
I guess The Opus Dei are the poor man's Masons or just another excuse for a bunch of losers who are bereft of some sort of class system. Being middle class is something new here and some people will go to weird lengths to prove they are not a peasant.
As a child I was surrounded by books and I was fascinated with two reference books, one on entomology and the other dermatology. I used to enjoy frightening myself by opening the page at random to see which insect or skin disease would shock me to my core. So it is now whenever I have the misfortune to hear the ITV news or pass the headlines of most British papers as they all seem to announce ' and there's worse to come.........' It makes me realise that most Brits wouldn't last long here if they think it is bad in Britain. Writing a complaint letter here just induces howls of laughter to the person you address it to.
I talked about the Opus Dei recently and standing outside their church was not the first Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came moment I have had here. It was a lovely sunny Sunday in our first flat here and somebody upstairs was playing marbles or rather playing marbles Spanish style, for hours on end on a cold ceramic floor without any purpose except maybe drive the whole block insane. I have spoken of the acoustics of Spanish flats before but this one was the most surreal as you could even hear a workman making indentations on a wall with his thumb. Anyway, after listening to Henderson screaming his head off I went up to have a word. We didn't know anyone then and while I was waiting outside to have the word some other neighbours were peering round a door whispering to me in such a terrified way that anyone would have thought the Nazis were coming. 'Don't go in there' they were pleading but in I went and told them they were torturing my husband and would they kindly put a sock in it and shut the fuck up. When I came out the other neighbours bundled me into their flat and told me 'Don't ever go in there again, they are Opus Dei'. They then went on to tell me about the husband's shenanigans and the wife's depressing choice in underwear.
I guess The Opus Dei are the poor man's Masons or just another excuse for a bunch of losers who are bereft of some sort of class system. Being middle class is something new here and some people will go to weird lengths to prove they are not a peasant.
As a child I was surrounded by books and I was fascinated with two reference books, one on entomology and the other dermatology. I used to enjoy frightening myself by opening the page at random to see which insect or skin disease would shock me to my core. So it is now whenever I have the misfortune to hear the ITV news or pass the headlines of most British papers as they all seem to announce ' and there's worse to come.........' It makes me realise that most Brits wouldn't last long here if they think it is bad in Britain. Writing a complaint letter here just induces howls of laughter to the person you address it to.
Sunday 23 November 2008
GRAVITATE v. GRAVIATE
As somebody who is still getting used to this blog lark I have just discovered that today's blog as it was part of a draft I had saved last week has gone back in time to last Sunday. Anybody still interested in the ramblings of a mad woman will have to go back and have a butcher's if they can be bothered.
Never short of something to say I will carry on while I am in writing mode. I am surrounded by tons of Post It notes with instructions or reminders that vary from Tibetans v. Pensions and Feral Kids v. Impertinent Ones. There is also one that says 'Hypothesis....group of foreign delinquents.....' and I am now reminded of an article in the local periodical that after several burglaries in the Ramon Y Cajal area the police have come up with this excuse.
It has been awfully quiet on the neighbour front and I read today in the 'society' pages no less that 5,000 Ecuadorians descended on Torreciudad, the BIG Opus Dei church not far from here or the Temple of Doom as Henderson pointed out when we had the misfortune of ending up there on a day out that went very wrong. 'Like entering a huge coffin' were his words and I must admit I got the sense of 'Childe Roland to the dark tower came' as we stood outside tossing a coin. The pilgrimage was to celebrate The Virgin of Quinche and the blessing of vehicles (?), and I was relieved to hear they had taken their instruments with them including among many, the cow bell.
I am often invited to events in London which alas I am unable to attend and was fascinated with one called You Me Bum Bum Train. I am still not sure what it entails but it has been described as 'leaving you psychologically bedraggled, mesmerised or uplifted' which is how I feel on an average day here. Another invite is The Texas Chainsaw Mascara where 'Nightmare musical kitsch sits next to a blood curdling screamalong' which is why I don't go out anymore.
Never short of something to say I will carry on while I am in writing mode. I am surrounded by tons of Post It notes with instructions or reminders that vary from Tibetans v. Pensions and Feral Kids v. Impertinent Ones. There is also one that says 'Hypothesis....group of foreign delinquents.....' and I am now reminded of an article in the local periodical that after several burglaries in the Ramon Y Cajal area the police have come up with this excuse.
It has been awfully quiet on the neighbour front and I read today in the 'society' pages no less that 5,000 Ecuadorians descended on Torreciudad, the BIG Opus Dei church not far from here or the Temple of Doom as Henderson pointed out when we had the misfortune of ending up there on a day out that went very wrong. 'Like entering a huge coffin' were his words and I must admit I got the sense of 'Childe Roland to the dark tower came' as we stood outside tossing a coin. The pilgrimage was to celebrate The Virgin of Quinche and the blessing of vehicles (?), and I was relieved to hear they had taken their instruments with them including among many, the cow bell.
I am often invited to events in London which alas I am unable to attend and was fascinated with one called You Me Bum Bum Train. I am still not sure what it entails but it has been described as 'leaving you psychologically bedraggled, mesmerised or uplifted' which is how I feel on an average day here. Another invite is The Texas Chainsaw Mascara where 'Nightmare musical kitsch sits next to a blood curdling screamalong' which is why I don't go out anymore.
Saturday 22 November 2008
'I think we are in for a long hard winter....'
I hear the council are finally going to splash out and change the Christmas lights they have hung up and been hanging onto for the past fifty years at least which were beginning to depress me after seven. The putting up of said lights always involves an over zealous police man with a whistle. The first time I saw this I thought something terrible had happened.
Strolling along the streets of this 'city' I found myself doing that thing again. You know, saying stuff that wouldn't look out of place if my dad were walking alongside. ' And they say there's no money about' would be the remark as the town spills out from every bar despite the cold and crisis. It's still tapas week or tapa depending on how much money you have, and it's not stopping everyone from spinning around in their Barbour jackets while stocking up at the local perfumeria and cooing over their well heeled children and debating which bar to go to next. It amazes me the fervour this festival attracts. The bar owners are beside themselves as they were expecting a low turn out with all the doom and gloom around. I got a text from Steffers and we are to meet in the Tomate Jamon early tomorrow to bag a table and hopefully have lunch with some mode of decorum. Strategies are needed when it comes to food and I still haven't quite mastered it.
In the last week I have been asked by three people for money which is quite common as Christmas looms. Henderson gave me a ticking off for giving a man he described as a junkie the euro from my shopping trolley which the man begged me to give him. I've never really known exactly how I feel about the argument that you are only encouraging people to drink more or take drugs but who knows what they have been through and I don't think we should be heartless to the penniless. Earlier I had seen a boy and girl sitting on the pavement smoking and trying to play the bongos and it reminded me of a time long ago when I would be found in a similar plight not minding the smoking bit or the boy bit even, but detesting the bongo part. I am convinced this bongo playing plague started not in the sixties or Africa but in a club in Soho in the nineties called Violets which was named after Ronnie and Reggie Kray's mum. A club that looked like a scene from Tony Hancock's The Rebel crossed with What's New Pussycat.It wasn't a club to be taken seriously and was a bit of a laugh really but it inadvertently spawned the desire to make noise for the sake of it by thousands of young men all over Europe.
I have a terrible affliction, well, many, among them Spoonersim ( dyslexia as well it seems ) but the latest development seems to be an inability to coordinate the names of the television programmes as Henderson whizzes through them to see what's on that particular night. This is how I came up with the Muslims Do The Funniest Things but today it was for a moment that I thought Gary Linekar was The Devil's Whore. This also happens when I am scanning the headlines of the newspapers via the Internet and today it was Gordon Brown and The Skull of Doom. In the supermarket I was sure I had seen a product called Porn Copper but it seems too obvious. It would be easy to blame the drink but I am afraid it has always been like this and shows no sign of getting better.
Strolling along the streets of this 'city' I found myself doing that thing again. You know, saying stuff that wouldn't look out of place if my dad were walking alongside. ' And they say there's no money about' would be the remark as the town spills out from every bar despite the cold and crisis. It's still tapas week or tapa depending on how much money you have, and it's not stopping everyone from spinning around in their Barbour jackets while stocking up at the local perfumeria and cooing over their well heeled children and debating which bar to go to next. It amazes me the fervour this festival attracts. The bar owners are beside themselves as they were expecting a low turn out with all the doom and gloom around. I got a text from Steffers and we are to meet in the Tomate Jamon early tomorrow to bag a table and hopefully have lunch with some mode of decorum. Strategies are needed when it comes to food and I still haven't quite mastered it.
In the last week I have been asked by three people for money which is quite common as Christmas looms. Henderson gave me a ticking off for giving a man he described as a junkie the euro from my shopping trolley which the man begged me to give him. I've never really known exactly how I feel about the argument that you are only encouraging people to drink more or take drugs but who knows what they have been through and I don't think we should be heartless to the penniless. Earlier I had seen a boy and girl sitting on the pavement smoking and trying to play the bongos and it reminded me of a time long ago when I would be found in a similar plight not minding the smoking bit or the boy bit even, but detesting the bongo part. I am convinced this bongo playing plague started not in the sixties or Africa but in a club in Soho in the nineties called Violets which was named after Ronnie and Reggie Kray's mum. A club that looked like a scene from Tony Hancock's The Rebel crossed with What's New Pussycat.It wasn't a club to be taken seriously and was a bit of a laugh really but it inadvertently spawned the desire to make noise for the sake of it by thousands of young men all over Europe.
I have a terrible affliction, well, many, among them Spoonersim ( dyslexia as well it seems ) but the latest development seems to be an inability to coordinate the names of the television programmes as Henderson whizzes through them to see what's on that particular night. This is how I came up with the Muslims Do The Funniest Things but today it was for a moment that I thought Gary Linekar was The Devil's Whore. This also happens when I am scanning the headlines of the newspapers via the Internet and today it was Gordon Brown and The Skull of Doom. In the supermarket I was sure I had seen a product called Porn Copper but it seems too obvious. It would be easy to blame the drink but I am afraid it has always been like this and shows no sign of getting better.
Wednesday 19 November 2008
AR SE HOLES
The Aragonese are as I have pointed out before, famous throughout Spain for their intractability and here is an example of a conversation I couldn't imagine having anywhere else. Note my ability to integrate and be intransigent.
Me on the subject of the never ending acts of 'gamberrismo' around town: It's a pity there's so much vandalism and graffiti here because it could be such a nice little town.
Student: It's a city.
Me: What is?
Student:It's a city.
Me thinking the town has grown by 2,000 in the last few weeks: Oh, it's not a town anymore?
Student: Ana, it's a city.
Me: So there are 50,ooo people living here now?
Student exasperated: It's a city.
Me: I wouldn't call it a city.
Student: Yes, it's a city.
Me: OK, it's a city with a village mentality.
Student: It's a city.
Me: Perhaps we should just leave it as a village.
Student: OK, you think what you like.
I'd like to point out that the student is very nice, we get on unless it involves the town in question and its position in the grand scheme of things and normally displays a wider vocabulary.
Talking of the town it seems that the whole place is just a chain gang of hole makers be it holes in the ground or those that involve paper punches and the never ending world of Spanish bureaucracy. Whilst dealing with another piece of paper today I was also spoilt for choice regarding noise. The pervading sound of the neighbour's cow bell not, as you might imagine, attached to a cow seeing as we live in the lovely Pyrenees, but the Ecuadorian equivalent of the triangle perhaps was all I could hear until I opened the window and could listen to the rest of the band. Earlier some workmen came round to put up scaffolding and when I returned three hours later they were taking it down. Wrong house perhaps? Outside I had to dodge various men up ladders, up machines used for fixing guttering and lorries on the go moving earth to make a huge hole next to the other new blocks of flats. There is always a man or sometimes men not connected but out for a stroll, standing staring at the hole regardless of its size with their hands behind their backs and mouths open.
A lot of women find as they get older the dreadful realisation that they are repeating sentences their mothers say and they vowed never to. I don't have this problem as I find myself repeating stuff my dad says like 'is it me or am I getting old? ' which he has been saying for about 40 years. I caught myself muttering 'artful as a wagon load of monkeys' as I chased two of the 'punkies' the other night after they decided to illustrate their thoughts on our communal front door with the threats of 'Marcos I will kill you' and 'Pijos del punk'. It didn't occur to me at the time when I confronted them that they might, as Henderson pointed out, have hit me or worse but I wasn't in the least bit scared and let's not forget they run away from me, a small, middle aged,rather elegant woman ( as I like to imagine that night ) waving her handbag shouting 'cobardes' or cowards. Chasing them as far as my eyes could see I wheezed back home to find two neighbours both male and in a state of excitement after seeing my valiant, admirable or stupid behaviour and both said 'if we had been here a few minutes earlier..........' What? that we could all have enjoyed stringing the 'punkies' from a lamppost? The most we could do was call the police who asked for my name and identification and went off to look for the scallywags. Nothing will come of it and the town has become such an eyesore that no one even notices the graffiti anymore. It will be a nice town once the council get round to cleaning it up and the holes get filled in.
Me on the subject of the never ending acts of 'gamberrismo' around town: It's a pity there's so much vandalism and graffiti here because it could be such a nice little town.
Student: It's a city.
Me: What is?
Student:It's a city.
Me thinking the town has grown by 2,000 in the last few weeks: Oh, it's not a town anymore?
Student: Ana, it's a city.
Me: So there are 50,ooo people living here now?
Student exasperated: It's a city.
Me: I wouldn't call it a city.
Student: Yes, it's a city.
Me: OK, it's a city with a village mentality.
Student: It's a city.
Me: Perhaps we should just leave it as a village.
Student: OK, you think what you like.
I'd like to point out that the student is very nice, we get on unless it involves the town in question and its position in the grand scheme of things and normally displays a wider vocabulary.
Talking of the town it seems that the whole place is just a chain gang of hole makers be it holes in the ground or those that involve paper punches and the never ending world of Spanish bureaucracy. Whilst dealing with another piece of paper today I was also spoilt for choice regarding noise. The pervading sound of the neighbour's cow bell not, as you might imagine, attached to a cow seeing as we live in the lovely Pyrenees, but the Ecuadorian equivalent of the triangle perhaps was all I could hear until I opened the window and could listen to the rest of the band. Earlier some workmen came round to put up scaffolding and when I returned three hours later they were taking it down. Wrong house perhaps? Outside I had to dodge various men up ladders, up machines used for fixing guttering and lorries on the go moving earth to make a huge hole next to the other new blocks of flats. There is always a man or sometimes men not connected but out for a stroll, standing staring at the hole regardless of its size with their hands behind their backs and mouths open.
A lot of women find as they get older the dreadful realisation that they are repeating sentences their mothers say and they vowed never to. I don't have this problem as I find myself repeating stuff my dad says like 'is it me or am I getting old? ' which he has been saying for about 40 years. I caught myself muttering 'artful as a wagon load of monkeys' as I chased two of the 'punkies' the other night after they decided to illustrate their thoughts on our communal front door with the threats of 'Marcos I will kill you' and 'Pijos del punk'. It didn't occur to me at the time when I confronted them that they might, as Henderson pointed out, have hit me or worse but I wasn't in the least bit scared and let's not forget they run away from me, a small, middle aged,rather elegant woman ( as I like to imagine that night ) waving her handbag shouting 'cobardes' or cowards. Chasing them as far as my eyes could see I wheezed back home to find two neighbours both male and in a state of excitement after seeing my valiant, admirable or stupid behaviour and both said 'if we had been here a few minutes earlier..........' What? that we could all have enjoyed stringing the 'punkies' from a lamppost? The most we could do was call the police who asked for my name and identification and went off to look for the scallywags. Nothing will come of it and the town has become such an eyesore that no one even notices the graffiti anymore. It will be a nice town once the council get round to cleaning it up and the holes get filled in.
Sunday 16 November 2008
COMING ALONG TO ARAGON
As Sunday draws to a close I realise I haven't done any of the things I promised Henderson I would do, like sort out the 'trastero', the room where everything you might need one day lies among the bottles of wine waiting to be drunk. A pile of cardboard boxes wait to be taken to the Santa Rosa school for young ladies and gentlemen in order for them to appreciate what I learned from Blue Peter but God knows what their parents will make of it. Maybe now that they realise the boom is probably over here in Spain and their children stop asking me why I wear the same jumper two days in a row they will be able to start using their imagination. Having an imagination and being genuinely creative is still not something that goes on here in many schools. The art of conversation as opposed to shouting and learning to enjoy silence need to go on the curriculum too.
Had lunch with Stephanie and we have decided that between her 'dispensa' , my 'trastero' and Mercedes' 'storeroom' we should be OK if the proverbial hits the fan. I'm starting to feel the chronic obsession with death stops a lot of people from enjoying life. I came here to get away from the perpetual anxiety I had in London about what if something awful happens on The Tube and what have you. I remember this got so bad my doctor, one Doctor Cheese sent me to have cognitive behavioural therapy which did pay off but only after Doctor Twitchin told me that even when anxiety escalates nothing can really happen unless you have the misfortune to be sitting next to a holy warrior.
Today I was delighted to get an e-mail from an old friend who lives in Portugal and like me pines for the motherland. The yin and yang of where to set up, set roots and where to go when you've had enough. Where to have your ashes thrown. I feel I have one foot planted in each country. When I talk to people back in Britain they are aghast when I tell them I quite often want to come home. They seem to think crime only occurs in Britain and Spain is such a simpler place to live. In the seven years we have been here I've lost count of the amount of times we have gone to the police as a community or to report vandalism to the car. It can't be the same clever bastard who spends his or her spare time kicking the wing mirrors off every car parked on Calle Torre Mendoza.
I saw our president today and asked him politely if he could replace a light bulb in the hallway. He told me that if I didn't tell him these things then how was he supposed to know if the light bulb had blown. When I asked him what was going to happen with the words 'Marcos I will kill you' on the front door he seemed to have quite a defeatist air but I might have misinterpreted it as a 'can't be bothered' attitude. We shall see. I am sure I have got the wrong end of.
I came home to find Henderson in his pinny cooking tagine and he also had managed to knock up a beef and ale pie although he confessed to putting Guinness in it. What with his Toad in the Hole planned for next Wednesday that is us pretty much sorted food wise for the week. This often induces a frisson of the fear type when the subject comes up round Mercedes' house. Her husband is very disappointed in Henderson for displaying such effeminate qualities. Our other neighbours, the effing bleeders as they are communally and for all I know locally known caught sight of Henderson one hot summer's day resplendent in vest and sarong. "Now we know what you are', the female of the species cried and continued to scream 'maricon' for a good ten minutes.
Had lunch with Stephanie and we have decided that between her 'dispensa' , my 'trastero' and Mercedes' 'storeroom' we should be OK if the proverbial hits the fan. I'm starting to feel the chronic obsession with death stops a lot of people from enjoying life. I came here to get away from the perpetual anxiety I had in London about what if something awful happens on The Tube and what have you. I remember this got so bad my doctor, one Doctor Cheese sent me to have cognitive behavioural therapy which did pay off but only after Doctor Twitchin told me that even when anxiety escalates nothing can really happen unless you have the misfortune to be sitting next to a holy warrior.
Today I was delighted to get an e-mail from an old friend who lives in Portugal and like me pines for the motherland. The yin and yang of where to set up, set roots and where to go when you've had enough. Where to have your ashes thrown. I feel I have one foot planted in each country. When I talk to people back in Britain they are aghast when I tell them I quite often want to come home. They seem to think crime only occurs in Britain and Spain is such a simpler place to live. In the seven years we have been here I've lost count of the amount of times we have gone to the police as a community or to report vandalism to the car. It can't be the same clever bastard who spends his or her spare time kicking the wing mirrors off every car parked on Calle Torre Mendoza.
I saw our president today and asked him politely if he could replace a light bulb in the hallway. He told me that if I didn't tell him these things then how was he supposed to know if the light bulb had blown. When I asked him what was going to happen with the words 'Marcos I will kill you' on the front door he seemed to have quite a defeatist air but I might have misinterpreted it as a 'can't be bothered' attitude. We shall see. I am sure I have got the wrong end of.
I came home to find Henderson in his pinny cooking tagine and he also had managed to knock up a beef and ale pie although he confessed to putting Guinness in it. What with his Toad in the Hole planned for next Wednesday that is us pretty much sorted food wise for the week. This often induces a frisson of the fear type when the subject comes up round Mercedes' house. Her husband is very disappointed in Henderson for displaying such effeminate qualities. Our other neighbours, the effing bleeders as they are communally and for all I know locally known caught sight of Henderson one hot summer's day resplendent in vest and sarong. "Now we know what you are', the female of the species cried and continued to scream 'maricon' for a good ten minutes.
Saturday 15 November 2008
TAPA OR TAPAS?
While two million suckers ring up the Bulli Restaurant to get a seat the annual tapas competition gets into swing here. Opening night was at the latest hotel with the usual mob including the Queen of Ligging, our mayor. He was found stuffing his face with a vol au vent or two while the rest of us tried to get a drink. Mr Mayor was overheard, over a deconstructed tortilla, saying that the tapa in question was in his estimation, 'estupenda', and the roof of his mouth told him it was of the best or highest quality and was, culinarily, very good. Fair play, but he didn't stop there. These small delicacies he went on to say, were, 'just one more element of improvement for the town, blah blah, can only be a good thing, promotion is what we need', you know the usual shite about how we can put our town on the map. Meanwhile, Mercedes upstairs can't go out in her wheelchair for tapas 'cos she hasn't got a pavement to ride on. I remember a night at the local theatre where he did go on about how great everything was and how the amateur dramatic society was probably the best in the universe and when someone starting clapping before he had finished I remarked to the woman next to me that I thought it a bit rude, the clapping bit of course. 'If somebody doesn't take the initiative he will go on all night' she replied.
With the mayor eating his head off, the rest of the townsfolk did the same and it was the usual gang warfare as they battled their way to the bar as if there were no tomorrow. People who had been let out for the first time ate and screamed like wolves as I and my companions tried to make ourselves understood without resorting to the same. I dug my heels in and refused to budge just to see if the rumpus would spill out into the street.
While I was contemplating the possibilities of this, several drivers were driving around town in a state of inebriation and were the next day quoted in the paper as driving in ' an irregular, hasty and audacious manner' which could put the rest of us at risk. With the town in a state of frenzy the police decided to surprise and arrest someone who was lurking in my road carrying one of my favourite words, 'estupefacientes'. That's drugs to you and me.
With everyone spinning around town I feel a night in wouldn't go amiss so it's off to bed with Kingsley or Jeremy Paxman or both if they are lucky. Let's hope the monkeys next door as Henderson has started to call them, don't wake us up with their incessant wailing and moaning and tossing of fruit peel and skin onto our terrace.
With the mayor eating his head off, the rest of the townsfolk did the same and it was the usual gang warfare as they battled their way to the bar as if there were no tomorrow. People who had been let out for the first time ate and screamed like wolves as I and my companions tried to make ourselves understood without resorting to the same. I dug my heels in and refused to budge just to see if the rumpus would spill out into the street.
While I was contemplating the possibilities of this, several drivers were driving around town in a state of inebriation and were the next day quoted in the paper as driving in ' an irregular, hasty and audacious manner' which could put the rest of us at risk. With the town in a state of frenzy the police decided to surprise and arrest someone who was lurking in my road carrying one of my favourite words, 'estupefacientes'. That's drugs to you and me.
With everyone spinning around town I feel a night in wouldn't go amiss so it's off to bed with Kingsley or Jeremy Paxman or both if they are lucky. Let's hope the monkeys next door as Henderson has started to call them, don't wake us up with their incessant wailing and moaning and tossing of fruit peel and skin onto our terrace.
Friday 14 November 2008
Can it really be a week since I wrote my last blog? Friend from London has obviously gone back and we've returned to life in the 'big city' once again. I asked Friend from London what he liked about Spain and he reckons going to a bar where grave diggers, lawyers, surgeons and men with limps who managed to climb Everest rub shoulders and drink together. He also likes Carnival too and when asked why replied, 'it's the sheer political incorrectness of it all'.
Talking to a Spanish friend about bringing up children I realised there isn't really a word for this in Spanish as you have to say 'educar' which also means to educate. He agreed with me as regards teaching your kids basic manners and all the rest of it which I like to think most people around the world try to do but in the next breath started saying how expensive it was to 'bring up' your children and I realised he had missed the point. I dare not bring the subject up again after what has been in the British news the last few days regarding parents and their offspring except that the same sort of thing does go on here albeit without the Daily Mail to remind us which I am not sure is a good or a bad thing anymore.
Henderson arrived home in a state of shock and awe at the latest antics of his fellow citizens. He couldn't work out why there were so many people in the local Mercadona with queues going out the door. The supermarket were giving away free baguettes, you know, the ones you could stun someone over the head with the next day, and the locals were wild with excitement. Give them a free baked potato and a cup of hot chocolate and the same scenes will be repeated.
There is the annual tapa competition which starts tonight. I agree with Babi our local Citizen Smith that you'd think the Spanish had never eaten a tapa before the way they engulf the bars when this scrum is on.
Talking to a Spanish friend about bringing up children I realised there isn't really a word for this in Spanish as you have to say 'educar' which also means to educate. He agreed with me as regards teaching your kids basic manners and all the rest of it which I like to think most people around the world try to do but in the next breath started saying how expensive it was to 'bring up' your children and I realised he had missed the point. I dare not bring the subject up again after what has been in the British news the last few days regarding parents and their offspring except that the same sort of thing does go on here albeit without the Daily Mail to remind us which I am not sure is a good or a bad thing anymore.
Henderson arrived home in a state of shock and awe at the latest antics of his fellow citizens. He couldn't work out why there were so many people in the local Mercadona with queues going out the door. The supermarket were giving away free baguettes, you know, the ones you could stun someone over the head with the next day, and the locals were wild with excitement. Give them a free baked potato and a cup of hot chocolate and the same scenes will be repeated.
There is the annual tapa competition which starts tonight. I agree with Babi our local Citizen Smith that you'd think the Spanish had never eaten a tapa before the way they engulf the bars when this scrum is on.
Friday 7 November 2008
The local paper seemed to be bemoaning that President Zapatero hasn't been included in the phone calls made by Obama or to Obama to congratulate or whatever it is they do. The Spanish take things to heart ( ha!) and this hasn't been the only thing lately that makes them feel left out. As I find it quite difficult to take any of them seriously anymore I am not surprised their leader hasn't been called or invited anywhere.I think what I am trying to say is they quite often do my head in. Difficult bastards are the words I am grasping for.
I saw an advert today that was loosely described as a comedy festival by using words like ja ja ja ( ha bloody ha ) and the G-7 of humour, and asked if there 'was life after the Expo?' If the lack of interest from the girl at the train station in Zaragoza is anything to go by then I doubt it. Meeting a friend there who had come over from London the other day I realised how I don't even notice the lack of care and pride that can be seen on the daily round. The most startling once it had been pointed out to me was the street furniture, bollards in this case that had been pinned down by a couple of screws or none at all during the festival, and had now been tossed aside into a corner near the entrance to the 'lovely' new station, the one that someone has drilled holes in all over it for aesthetic reasons obviously and for reasons unknown has lost most of the corners. I thought about going back to take a photo of the spheres and send it to the various dignitaries with 'Que Cojones' attached. What a load of bollocks in other words.
This is partly why I can't take anyone seriously. It is a nice place to live but don't expect anyone to 'get it'. I feel sorry for those that might or could, especially the pupil the other day who told me her teacher likes to stick a video on during their 'alternativa' class, a class that replaces the option of studying religion. The teacher also tells them they can do their homework so long as they are quiet and don't interrupt her viewing of the film.
Another pupil has told me there is a third or even a fourth way to tell the time in English but couldn't remember what her teacher had said in the lesson. We went through the various ways of telling the time even though I told her one way would be enough to be getting on with but she still insisted there was another way and I wasn't saying it. I even found myself saying things like it's five and twenty to nine just to get to the bottom of the story.
Friend from London has brought a book that I am off to read. Everyday Drinking, The Distilled Kingsley Amis which of course will be accompanied by a snifter or two.
I saw an advert today that was loosely described as a comedy festival by using words like ja ja ja ( ha bloody ha ) and the G-7 of humour, and asked if there 'was life after the Expo?' If the lack of interest from the girl at the train station in Zaragoza is anything to go by then I doubt it. Meeting a friend there who had come over from London the other day I realised how I don't even notice the lack of care and pride that can be seen on the daily round. The most startling once it had been pointed out to me was the street furniture, bollards in this case that had been pinned down by a couple of screws or none at all during the festival, and had now been tossed aside into a corner near the entrance to the 'lovely' new station, the one that someone has drilled holes in all over it for aesthetic reasons obviously and for reasons unknown has lost most of the corners. I thought about going back to take a photo of the spheres and send it to the various dignitaries with 'Que Cojones' attached. What a load of bollocks in other words.
This is partly why I can't take anyone seriously. It is a nice place to live but don't expect anyone to 'get it'. I feel sorry for those that might or could, especially the pupil the other day who told me her teacher likes to stick a video on during their 'alternativa' class, a class that replaces the option of studying religion. The teacher also tells them they can do their homework so long as they are quiet and don't interrupt her viewing of the film.
Another pupil has told me there is a third or even a fourth way to tell the time in English but couldn't remember what her teacher had said in the lesson. We went through the various ways of telling the time even though I told her one way would be enough to be getting on with but she still insisted there was another way and I wasn't saying it. I even found myself saying things like it's five and twenty to nine just to get to the bottom of the story.
Friend from London has brought a book that I am off to read. Everyday Drinking, The Distilled Kingsley Amis which of course will be accompanied by a snifter or two.
Sunday 2 November 2008
I was woken up in the early hours to find Henderson pinning a chopping board against the wall and beating it about the face with a ladle. I later found out it was and still is his preferred method of controlling the family of Ecuadorians next door when they 'play up' and the chopping board is, he claims, some sort of barrier method that prevents the instrument from piercing our paper thin walls and addling, if there is such a verb, the brains of said familia. As I have said on other occasions, there are limits when it comes to expressing the arts and no doubt we can rely on the wheeling out of the Ecuadorian Minister for Culture to defend everything Ecuadorian, but the music? The padre of this brood often accosts Henderson in the street and starts a sentence with 'nosotros' and Henderson, always in a hurry to get somewhere, fails to hear anything else. This father has the misfortune of having 'son of a ' written all over his phizog and so far hasn't started anything with me. The woman who lives above him has accosted me however to complain of his family's antics morning, noon and night and I have offered to call the landlady but then she runs away scared, not wanting to 'get involved' I suppose. It seems everyone here possesses that intractability that Gerald Brenan admired so much. Meaning, impossible.
Regardless of the noise next door I did get some sleep but was perplexed to find the letter R written on the back of my hand when I woke up. This is not the first or last time and B often features. Later on I remembered it was for a French film that goes by the name Ridicule which I love and need to get hold of. Talking of ridicule, those at the 'top' the new 'elite', politicians, comedians, celebrities of all levels all clamouring to be heard, to be funny, clever, rich or privileged in Britain seem to be having a bit of a rise and fall but as we all know, nothing much will change from any of this least of all my return to halcyon days.
We live in a 'hoya' which I suppose means a basin. When you approach the town from a southerly point you can see this as the road descends and the mountains appear. Sadly this means that quite often rain descends over the whole town and gets 'stuck', the same with fog. Going on the character of the locals they seem to have been living under a cloud for some time.
We have been invited to the premiere of a short film called 'Runner' which Henderson participated in as a voice over or rather they needed a native to say the bits in English. This is all part of the annual 'Periferias' which this year's theme is The Future. As we are some thirty years behind and quite often one hundred this does seem to be a bit like a child in the 1970's idea of with everyone flying and wearing tin foil. Thye couldn't afford George Clinton and The Mothership so they roped in someone called Black the Ripper. As always these festivals are littered with English words some I have never heard of like chip hop, glitchcore and dubstep or maybe I am just too old to care.The feature film which follows will be dubbed. Blade Runner. I won't be staying to watch that part of the festivities
For the finale I have found out that Starsky and Hutch is known in Spain as Starsky Y Hutch. Y being the and of the duo.Fair play, but the words are all 'run' together and the programme is known as Starsky Hutch. Like 'Punkies' it loses something.
Regardless of the noise next door I did get some sleep but was perplexed to find the letter R written on the back of my hand when I woke up. This is not the first or last time and B often features. Later on I remembered it was for a French film that goes by the name Ridicule which I love and need to get hold of. Talking of ridicule, those at the 'top' the new 'elite', politicians, comedians, celebrities of all levels all clamouring to be heard, to be funny, clever, rich or privileged in Britain seem to be having a bit of a rise and fall but as we all know, nothing much will change from any of this least of all my return to halcyon days.
We live in a 'hoya' which I suppose means a basin. When you approach the town from a southerly point you can see this as the road descends and the mountains appear. Sadly this means that quite often rain descends over the whole town and gets 'stuck', the same with fog. Going on the character of the locals they seem to have been living under a cloud for some time.
We have been invited to the premiere of a short film called 'Runner' which Henderson participated in as a voice over or rather they needed a native to say the bits in English. This is all part of the annual 'Periferias' which this year's theme is The Future. As we are some thirty years behind and quite often one hundred this does seem to be a bit like a child in the 1970's idea of with everyone flying and wearing tin foil. Thye couldn't afford George Clinton and The Mothership so they roped in someone called Black the Ripper. As always these festivals are littered with English words some I have never heard of like chip hop, glitchcore and dubstep or maybe I am just too old to care.The feature film which follows will be dubbed. Blade Runner. I won't be staying to watch that part of the festivities
For the finale I have found out that Starsky and Hutch is known in Spain as Starsky Y Hutch. Y being the and of the duo.Fair play, but the words are all 'run' together and the programme is known as Starsky Hutch. Like 'Punkies' it loses something.
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